The Windiest Cities in America — and Why It Isn’t Chicago
The windiest city in the country is Dodge City, Kansas, at 13.1 mph. Chicago — the “Windy City” — averages just 9.9 mph, below Boston, New York and Oklahoma City. Here is the real ranking, straight from NOAA’s wind data, with a source on every number.
No major U.S. city is windier than Boston, at 11.5 mph, with New York and Oklahoma City just behind at about 11.3 mph — and Chicago, for all its nickname, manages just 9.9 mph, below that pack and well under the real champion, Dodge City, Kansas, at 13.1 mph. Those figures come from NOAA’s Comparative Climatic Data, the National Centers for Environmental Information’s ranking of average wind speed at long-record U.S. weather stations over 1984–2018 — one authoritative source, not a blog copying a blog.
That one fact — Chicago is not the windiest American city, and never has been by the numbers — is the thing most “windiest cities” lists bury or get wrong. The genuinely windy places are almost all on the Great Plains and High Plains, where there is nothing to slow the air down. Here is the full ranking, then the two questions it raises: where do the big cities actually land, and why do the Plains win?
America’s Windiest Cities, by Average Wind Speed
Ranked by annual mean wind speed from NOAA’s Comparative Climatic Data (1984–2018), limited to cities in the Lower 48 so the comparison is fair. Mountaintop observatories and the Alaska and Pacific-island stations are discussed below — they are not cities.
| # | City | Avg wind (mph) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dodge City, KS | 13.1 | Windiest city in the Lower 48 |
| 2 | Amarillo, TX | 12.9 | Windiest mid-size city |
| 3 | Cheyenne, WY | 12.3 | |
| 4 | Rochester, MN | 12.1 | |
| 5 | Goodland, KS | 12.1 | |
| 6 | Clayton, NM | 12.1 | |
| 7 | Lubbock, TX | 12.0 | |
| 8 | Casper, WY | 12.0 | |
| 9 | Corpus Christi, TX | 11.7 | Windiest coastal city |
| 10 | Wichita, KS | 11.5 | |
| 11 | Boston, MA | 11.5 | Windiest major East Coast city |
| 12 | Great Falls, MT | 11.4 | |
| 13 | Oklahoma City, OK | 11.3 | |
| 14 | New York (LaGuardia), NY | 11.3 | |
| 15 | Wichita Falls, TX | 11.2 | |
| 16 | Grand Island, NE | 11.1 | |
| 17 | Galveston, TX | 11.1 | |
| 18 | Fargo, ND | 11.1 | |
| 19 | Concordia, KS | 11.0 |
Annual mean wind speed, NOAA NCEI Comparative Climatic Data, “Wind Speed — Average Speed (MPH),” period of record 1984–2018. The windiest U.S. weather station of any kind is a mountaintop: Mount Washington, New Hampshire, averages 35.7 mph and once clocked a 231 mph gust (1934). The windiest station in any inhabited category is Cold Bay, Alaska, at 16.1 mph.
Where the Big Cities Actually Land
Dodge City and Amarillo top the raw list, but they are small. If you only count the major metros, the windiest are Boston, New York and Oklahoma City — and this is where the Chicago myth finally falls apart. The “Windy City” sits eighth among the big metros below, behind two cities on the East Coast.
Wind is one of several ingredients in which places are genuinely pleasant to live — see how it folds into our best-weather states ranking.
Why the Great Plains Win
Look at the top of the ranking and the pattern is unmistakable: Kansas, the Texas Panhandle, Wyoming, Nebraska. Three forces stack up there, and nowhere else in the Lower 48 do all three line up at once.
- Pressure gradients drive the air hard. The Plains sit in the collision zone between warm air from the Gulf and cold air sweeping down from Canada. The steeper the pressure difference between two air masses, the faster the wind that flows between them — and the Plains live under that gradient for much of the year.
- There is nothing to slow it down. Wind speed at the ground depends heavily on “fetch” — how far the air can travel without hitting obstacles. Hundreds of miles of flat grassland with no mountains and few trees give the wind an unobstructed runway. Cities in valleys or behind hills, like Chicago on its lake plain, are sheltered by comparison.
- Elevation puts you closer to faster air. The High Plains — Cheyenne, Casper, Clayton, Goodland — sit a mile or more above sea level, nearer the stronger winds that blow above the surface friction layer. That is why Wyoming towns rank with the windiest places on the continent despite being far from any coast.
- Coasts get a fourth engine: the sea breeze. Corpus Christi, Galveston and Boston rank high for a different reason — the daily temperature difference between land and water pumps a reliable onshore wind, which is why the windiest non-Plains cities all sit on the water.
So Where Did “Windy City” Come From?
If it was never about the weather, why does the nickname stick? Because it was never meant literally. The etymologist Barry Popik, who did the archival legwork, found the phrase in print as early as 1876 — in the Cincinnati Enquirer, years before the newspaper editorial it is usually credited to. “Windy” was slang for boastful and long-winded, and Chicago’s promoters and politicians had a national reputation for both, especially while the city hustled to land the 1893 World’s Fair.
The popular story credits New York Sun editor Charles Dana with coining it to mock Chicago’s hot-air boosters — but no one has ever found the Dana editorial, and Popik’s earlier citations predate it anyway. So the honest version is this: Chicago is the Windy City because its civic salesmen were full of wind, not because its streets are. On the actual breeze, it is an ordinary big American city — windier than Houston, calmer than Boston.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the windiest city in the US?
Dodge City, Kansas, is the windiest city in the Lower 48, averaging 13.1 mph a year in NOAA’s Comparative Climatic Data (1984–2018). Amarillo, Texas (12.9 mph) is next and is the windiest mid-size city. Mountaintop observatories like Mount Washington, New Hampshire, average far higher — about 35.7 mph — but they are summit weather stations, not cities.
Is Chicago really the Windy City?
No. Chicago averages just 9.9 mph in NOAA’s data — windier than the US average, but below Boston (11.5 mph), New York and Oklahoma City (about 11.3 mph) and well below Dodge City (13.1 mph). The nickname is not about weather: etymologist Barry Popik traced "Windy City" to the 1870s, used as a jab at Chicago’s boastful, long-winded politicians and civic boosters, not its breezes.
What is the windiest state?
By city averages the windiest states are on the Great Plains and High Plains — Kansas, Texas, Wyoming, Nebraska and Oklahoma, where Dodge City, Amarillo, Cheyenne, Casper and Oklahoma City all top 11 mph. The windiest single US weather station overall is in Alaska (Cold Bay, about 16.1 mph), and the windiest inhabited coast is the central Great Plains, where flat, open terrain lets the wind run unobstructed.
Why are the Great Plains so windy?
Three things stack up. The Plains sit in the path of strong pressure gradients between weather systems, so the air is pushed hard. There are no mountains or forests to slow the surface wind — just hundreds of miles of flat, open fetch. And on the High Plains the ground itself is a mile or more above sea level, closer to the faster winds aloft. Together they make central Kansas and the Texas Panhandle the windiest inhabited country in the Lower 48.
Keep Exploring
Wind is the first chapter of our US city-climate series. See which cities get the most sky in the sunniest and cloudiest cities in America, then the temperature and rain extremes in the hottest states and cities, the coldest cities in America and the rainiest cities. When that Plains wind turns destructive, you get the worst derechos in US history. You can also look up the wind, heat or rain on any day in your town’s past with our weather-history tool — and if your local gauge beats a number here, tell us. Browse the rest at our weather records.
Sources & Method
All wind figures are the annual average wind speed (mph) from NOAA’s Comparative Climatic Data (National Centers for Environmental Information), “Wind Speed — Average Speed (MPH)” table, period of record 1984–2018, pulled and ranked on October 9, 2026. The ranking is limited to stations in the contiguous United States so cities compare with cities; Mount Washington’s 35.7 mph (a 6,288-foot summit observatory) and Cold Bay, Alaska’s 16.1 mph are noted separately. Mount Washington’s 231 mph gust (April 12, 1934) is from the Mount Washington Observatory record. The origin of the “Windy City” nickname — traced to 1876 and tied to boastful politicians rather than weather — follows etymologist Barry Popik’s research as summarized in the history of the nickname and the Encyclopedia of Chicago.